The burning in my butt lasted a whole week.
It was a week in which Matteo was nowhere to be seen and I felt like wring his neck for such a barbaric act. Sitting up had been such a big problem that Charlotte teased to death, but the arnica cream she applied to me had greatly relieved the itching and inflammation in the area.
It was my most immediate relief.
But of all that, the only thing the fool had failed to do was to mark me with an iron some sort of stamp of ownership, just as one marks cattle.
The interesting thing about those days was the fact that I was able to talk in an honest way with Aurora. She wasn't my friend, but she was the only one I could rant with without serious consequences. She understood my situation perfectly, just as she knew Matteo in a way that I could not re
